‘American Idol’ Results: Split Decision Leaves Lucky Seven

A mother knows. Last night, my “American Idol” recap gave some ink to my mother Roberta, who has formed the habit of emailing me after each and every performance with a little nugget of punny criticism that rivals that of Jimmy Iovine. (After “Islands In the Stream,” she wanted to drown Colton Dixon and Skylar Laine in a stream, for example.) Anyway, she selected Elise Testone, DeAndre Brackensick and Hollie Cavanagh for the Bottom Three, and she was right. About DeAndre, “gotta go,” she wrote. And that he did.

But it wasn’t without a struggle between the judges—spearheaded by Jennifer Lopez—and Jimmy. Uniformly, the judges loved DeAndre’s take on DeBarge’s “I Like It” last night, but Jimmy chided them for giving him praise where it wasn’t due. “No, not great,” said Jimmy, and then spoke right at J. Lo about her personal campaign to keep DeAndre in the running. She didn’t back down, however, when it came time to decide on using the judges’ save. DeAndre sang that one song he did at the start of the season that was actually kind of good, back when he was still interesting (“Master Blaster”), only it couldn’t outshine the dashed hopes of what could have been. J. Lo admitted she voted to save him, but Randy Jackson and Steven Tyler refused to concede, and so it was bye-bye to DeAndre.

Just barely making it through for one more week, possibly two, were Hollie and Elise. Both got called out last night for singing out of tune, and Jimmy substantiated those claims tonight. About Hollie, he said she’s “approaching this like a high school performance.” Still, she was the first to head back to safety.

Jimmy said Elise had an “old-fashioned choke.” Elise tried to respond to Ryan Seacrest with her take on the matter, going on and on about feeling the emotion and being hurt in a relationship, and Ryan just let her keep going until it was beyond TMI. Awkward for Elise, yes, but also for Ryan for being that bad at interviewing. Is this what we’re in for this summer when Ryan works the Olympics? Some failed javelin guy babbling on about throwing a bit too far to the left because he was so lost in the moment?

Joshua Ledet and Jessica Sanchez got the highest marks from Jimmy, who went so far as to say this is now a competition between the two of them. And seeing them up there together being given their weekly rundown (duet couples were called up)—and having seen the “Hunger Games” since the last elimination, I keep thinking this will be some dreadful and exciting star-crossed fight to the death. Yes, maybe these two have it in them to really duel it out and make this season finally become a little bit interesting.

The Usual
There was a Ford commercial with a painting and sort of paper cut-out SUVs, thrilling as that may sound.

The Wanted performed their Brit boy-band dance thing that they do, and seemed innocent enough until they shouted, “We’re coming for you, JLo!” Then JLo, in a gray business-casual dress, wriggled in her office chair, and nothing made sense anymore.

A very skinny Kellie Pickler sang “Where’s Tammy Wynette,” with phrases like “honky tonk angel” and “good girl gone bad” making it sound like some twangy vendetta that Skylar will probably sing next week.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Comcast.